RYIN
I’m entirely numb, not just from the cold at my wrists, penetrating my entire body, but from every emotion draining out of me. How to endure this again? Having my soul taken again, which is what the Nimali are planning. While murder doesn’t fit into their covenant, slavery apparently does, a fact which makes absolutely no sense to me. My daimon balks at the very idea.
Xipporah’s expression is fierce—it’s like she’s shooting nails from her eyeballs. She stands next to her sister, stoic and strong. They told me it was suicide to try and follow Talia when the soldiers took her away. I must live to fight for her.
Ice forms in my chest where my heart used to be. I focus on my anger to keep me grounded in the here and now. Anger at the Nimali, at Von, at Enzo and Nyana for holding me back when Von had Talia in his grip.
Talia. The frost within me cracks into slivers when I catch a glimpse of her.
She stands with the king and Lady Dominga, who just arrived. The Nimali soldiers do not guard us as closely now that we are of little threat, iced and shackled as we are. The cold breath of the yeti shifters has faded, but my frozen wrists ensure I can mount no defense.
So I make my way closer to the king unhindered, even as others shy away. I need to be near to Talia. The fear in her expression is beginning to thaw every numb place within me.
Lady Dominga has a comm in her hand and waves it around as she speaks. I’m finally close enough to hear. Talia doesn’t notice my presence; she’s too busy staring at Dominga.
“Your Majesty, the proof is right here. I’ve been searching for it all night. If you will?”
King Lyall frowns at her but gives a tiny nod. Dominga opens the comm and swipes at it, engaging the projector functionality. An image of Celena hovers just off the ground. Dominga fiddles with the device and the princess’s face grows larger, the image zooming in on her features.
“Do you see it, my king? The month before she disappeared, Princess Celena and I were volunteering with the flood victims. We were entertaining some of the children when a young girl fell down in the midst of a seizure. Her arms and legs flailed about and she accidentally hit Celena in the face, scratching her upper lip deeply.
“Celena didn’t want the child to get into trouble, so she told no one. No Fai healer attended to her. She used a liquid bandage and hid the mark with makeup. It left a scar, which you can see in this vid on a day she’d forgotten to hide it.”
Dominga pointed to the princess’s frozen face, a deep crescent moon-shaped scar lay just above her top lip. Aside from that, she was identical to Talia, except for the frost present in the gleam of her eye.
“We talked about that scar all the time,” Dominga continues. “I told her she should have it looked at by a healer before it was too late to remove, but she refused. She liked the way it looked. Said it made her appear formidable, like a warrior queen, and one day she would no longer hide it.”
Dominga turned to Talia, her eyes flashing. “This woman wears no makeup and has no scar. The time has passed for a Fai healer to be able to heal the mark. How could it be gone, then? Who are you?”
Lyall’s gaze moves between Dominga and Talia. His face is impassive, but Talia shrinks under it. Then she firms her mouth and squares her shoulders, tilting her chin up.
“She’s right.” Her voice is almost too low for me to hear, and I tense as she makes her admission. “My name is Talia Dubroca. I am not your daughter.”
If my wrists weren’t bound and my daimon subdued, I would leap to her side to protect her. Lyall blinks, still staring at her. His jaw is tight, and I’m afraid he’s going to order her killed right now. Or taken to the locker to be jailed. And something within me cannot let that happen. I have to distract him.
“Lyall Lyonson!” I shout, and now everyone on the plaza is focused on me.
Talia’s eyes widen with fear. I wish I could reassure her, but I want to draw attention away from her. And also, get my revenge.
“You have broken your covenant and killed innocents. Children, even.” My voice cracks at the end and I swallow, steadying my breathing. “I call you out by the ancient law of honorable combat. I demand a duel to avenge the death of my sister, Dove Malinasdaughter, who you cut down with no mercy three years ago.”
Lyall peers at me as he would a bug under his shoe, but I don’t back down. There will be no other time for me to settle this score. I recognized the truth in Shad’s voice when he talked of his covenant preventing the murder of innocents and finally knew who to blame for my sister’s death. Dove deserves justice, and while the king of the Nimali is powerful, so is my grief and rage. So am I.
“By custom and law, I cannot refuse,” Lyall says after a moment of consideration, “even if the challenge comes from one as unworthy as you. Let us be done with this quickly.”
He motions to a guard, who approaches and detaches my handcuffs. Warmth fills me, though the night is cool. The bliss cuffs create an unnatural chilling effect that does not last after their removal. The other Fai present slowly back away, making a large space on the grass—large enough for a dragon to fight a man.
“Ryin, no!” Talia calls out, her voice desperate. She shakes her head either in disbelief or warning.
I want to tell her to run. While the king is distracted, she should get away from here. I wish my gift was telepathy so I could show her every thought in my head. Every wish I had for things to be different.
I would tell her I dream of a world where we could be free. Could we have been so in her world? I would share my desire to show her my homeland and climb to the tops of one of the great trees with her. High enough for us to see the ocean and the bay, the lands to the north and the south. To watch the fog roll across the water. To take her to visit my parents’ graves. Our bliss shrine. The home I built with my hands and planned to live out my days in.
But a flash of light replaces the king, and before the dragon emerges, I call forth my daimon and focus on the fight ahead.
The first blast of flame catches my feet as I dodge it, shooting upward. The stench of burning grass makes my nose crinkle; my daimon heals my injury effortlessly. I take a deep breath and send a stream of fire from my throat, singing his scales and wings. His tough hide is incredibly difficult to break through. He is largely fire resistant, though a Fire Fai can still harm him. And while his flames will take longer to penetrate my daimon-toughened skin, I, too, will burn as I did before.
For all Lyall’s bulk, he is light and nimble on his feet, but I can maneuver more nimbly simply due to being smaller. However, there is nowhere to hide here on the plaza, and a flurry of flame hits my side, igniting me with pain. I am in agony, but already beginning to heal. Still, the wound slows me down. I cannot both heal and be on the offense at the same time; my daimon must focus to accomplish complex tasks. Flying and healing at once, perhaps, but as I do those things, no flame will come.
I circle around him, hovering at his back in order to catch my breath. But he spins faster than I’d anticipated, impossibly graceful. He releases his flame and it meets mine in the middle, fire against fire, our spirit-fueled blazes battling each other in a way natural flames could not.
My head reverberates with echoes of my sister’s screams. Her shuddering body beneath me taking its final breaths. I draw deeply from the well of pain and grief within me and assault him with all the fire I can muster.
It hits him, searing his scales. Burning through his wings. Smoke rises from his sinuous neck. He yowls in pain, and while I long to hit him again immediately, I need a few moments for the flames to come. His tail flicks out, swatting me. It connects with my rib cage, pushing me to the side.
I correct in mid-air and he backs away as I fly toward him. I'm intent on his eyes, the pain in them. It satisfies a vicious part of me that needs his suffering. But another cry rings out, this time Talia shouting in agony.
I shouldn’t split my focus, but I can’t help it. The dragon's tail has swatted her, throwing her across the lawn. She crashes into one of the metal lamp posts and lies motionless. Rage subsumes me and I turn back to the king.
However, he has effectively used my distraction against me. He launches a fire assault that consumes me. I fall from the air to the ground in a thud, every inch of me aflame and suffering. Clothes, grass, dirt, skin…they all burn, the mingling scent all I can focus on aside from the pain.
I peel my eyes open to stare at the sky, starless tonight. I’m unable to move. My muscles are burnt, the fire licking through them all the way to my bones, scorching me, roasting me.
I am done, this much I know. And I cannot move even so much as to find Talia. To see if she’s all right. To tell her not to worry. I want my daimon to heal her, but my vision blacks out before I can do more than think it.
The king’s voice is the last thing I hear. “Well met, healer. A worthy challenge.”
And then all goes dark.